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Missions
Acolytes of the Inquisition are dispatched on many assignments, most of them to stealthily work their way into a world and find infiltrators like heretics, xeno spies or daemons. Infiltration of Grahl Grahl is a Type-X world, a fuedal world that the Imperium has decreed be left alone to develop by itself. However, irrefutible evidence has been found to suggest that an arms dealer has situated himself on the planet and is trading modern arms to the population. The Cell was dispatched to hunt down the ring, posing as fuedal worlders. However, when incorporating themselves into Drissix, the holy city, the startling discovery of heresy was found, as well as several hints that the nobility may be turning to a more and more grotesque and demeaning form of entertainment. An arms dealer was also discovered, claiming to be selling weapons to the 'good guys,' while another strange man, another off-worlder, says differently, offering to help the Acolytes. When the lander first set down, the Acolytes were met by an Imperial agent who helped them form their cover stories and gain them suitable transportation. Briefing each other on the trip, the Cell came to Drissix, the Holy city, and took up their respective positions. While Jericus and Meghara posed as an engaged noble couple and slowly began working their way into the seedy dealings of the Cobblepotts, Thaddeus unearthed that a particular church was practicing herectical acts that the Bishop was afraid to touch. Dred managed to fit in well enough as a knight in Ordo Cruentus, even managing to find an arms dealer named Falconir who was willing to sell modern weapons. Requiring armed reinforcements, Thaddeus went to Dred and the knights, acquiring a kill team to scour the heretics. However, unbeknownst to the group, the cultists had already had dealings with the arms ring on the planet, and were well armed. However, another arms dealer named Angelus, wanting out, informed the group, and showed them a flanking route to catch the heretics by surprise, ending the fight quickly. Managing to convince the knights that the weapons were unholy relics, Thaddeus had all the guns melted down save for two stub automatics. Meanwhile, Jericus and Meghara had managed to slip into the higher social crowd enough that Jericus was invited to participate in an illegal duelling sport, and the Guardsman noted that the country club was slowly beginning to slip into debauchery, but dismissed it. Posing as a servent, Meghara won the duelling tournament, and Jericus acquired a small fortune and Lord Cobblepott's trust. A few days later, the Cell reunited under the pretense of planning the eventual wedding. Having restored Dred's status with an overexaggerated version of the story at the church, Thaddeus met with the couple and the group began to debrief. Midway through, the Bishop interjected, to which Meghara distracted him. When an Inquisitorial agent appeared, however, and began to relate more information, the assassin rejoined them, and all four began to hatch a plan to capture Falconir and take his arsenal to hit the main hub. After this, however, things began to fall apart. Tensions began flying when Jericus remarked his desire to execute Falconir instead of incapacitate him. The arguement heated up when Jericus divulged his world's history and that his regiment had been butchered, to which Thaddeus coldly remarked that Jericus was not the only one who had lost someone. With tensions unsettled, the Cell left the room and went their seperate ways. After examining the evidence they had before them when they met again, Thaddeus presumed that the nobility was hiding a dark secret: turning away from their deadly duelling games, they had moved on to worshipping the Chaos god Slaanesh for pleasure and entertainment. Needing to check things out for themselves, the Cell split up, with Jericus and Meghara going to ransack the country club while Dred and Thaddeus scoped the church where the heretics had set themselves up. Jericus let Meghara into the club before investigating the upper floors, finding almost nothing circumstantial save a single torture room. However, he did step in on a meeting between two nobles and a cultist before being detected, and manged to kill one of his pursuers in the chase. However, while trying to escape, Jericus ran into two heavily armed and armored noble guards outside, and while he killed one of them, his lack of skill with melee combat served to let the other guard sever his left ear and incapacitate him. Meghara's investigation of the lower floors revealed the Chaos torture dungeon where the cult had established themselves. Killing two cult initates, she freed a prisoner before moving on, finding more and more evidence of debauchery and corruption in the nobility. Spotting Jericus being dragged into the dungeon, but not recognizing him, she still decided to try and free him, breaking into the room in the middle of the torture session and killing the magos carrying out the interrogation and the mutated maid doing the actual physical work. Freeing Jericus, the two moved to leave the dungeon and take the evidence to the rest of the Cell. The two were already miles ahead, however, and had raided a small secret armory in the heretic church, returning with modern munitions. These were found just in time, as it turns out, as the magos stumbled out, somehow still alive, and fell into the sacrificial altar, his life essence used to transform him into a daemonette. Though the ritual was not fully carried out, making the daemon only a shade of its true form, it terrified all members of the Cell, even driving Jericus to flee the room. As it turned out, however, the creature fell quickly, doing minimal damage. Jericus returned, and just as the four were questioning what was happening on this world, a squardon of Inquisition stormtroopers stamped their way down the hallway, led by Inquisitor Callista Steele. Demanding a report, Steele informed the Acolytes that the arms ring had been neutralized and Grahl was now going to be swept clean of heresy by teams of stormtroopers. With that, the Infiltration of Grahl was complete, giving way to the scouring of the planet. COMPLETE Civil War on Midgard Midgard is an arctic hive world, a frozen wasteland with most of its population and production underground in the enormous cities. A rising split between the people has started heating tensions, and civil war seems inevitable. Even the intervention of the 168th Phalanx of the Imperial Guard did little to abate the coming conflict. Seeing the severity of the Chaos incursion on Grahl, Steele suspected the events on Midgard were spiralling out of control thanks to more dark agents. As such, with her promise to Jaq Draco to watch over the Cell for now, she took the group to the Asgard fitting station to meet their number four, Zane. Although initially hostile to the group, he managed to uneasily edge his way in. The shuttle from the Station descended to the planet, passing over the icey surface before lowering into the underground tunnels of Hive Svalbard, the planetary capital. Getting their first glimpse of the hive city, the group was greeted by a PDF captain loyal to the nobility. The man visibly stiffened at the mention of the conflict, and didn't seem all that glad to be on Inquisitorial liasion. Once at the hotel, Steele began laying out possibilities for assignments to the Acolytes, assigning Meghara (and inadvertedly Zane as well) to slip into the seedier part of town and listen for strange instances that had been happening in the Underworld. Jericus was to go to the PDF barracks to observe the soldiers and find out what could inspire the divide, and Dred went to visit the planetary governor Arlevsky. Zane collected quite a substantial bit of information. Apparently, the gang wars had been put on hold as the worker-faction (reds) PDF began taking over the tasks of the praetors, reverting to savagery to kill their foes. Both attempted to leave, but unfortunately got on the rougher side of a gang lieutenant. Fortunately, they were helped by the bartender, and managed to slip out, neither one having a scratch. Jericus' own investigation was inconclusive, as the blues and reds both seemed to be itching for the civil war, as opposed to trying to suppress it. Dred's meeting with Gorvernor Arlevsky was a disaster as well. The man was willfully ignorant, feeling instead that the problems Midgard was facing were due to offworld interferance. So much did he believe this that he even mind wiped the general who had sent for further Imperial support. Having correlated all this data, Steele recieved a tip that the Phalaxians were doing more than just riot suppression: they were leading their own investigations into the ruined sections of the hive. The Cell was instructed to find their camp and gather as much intel as possible before returning. On the Navy Valkyrie out there, Jericus and Zane managed to come to a more stable level of companionship through discussions of their past. In fact, they inadvertantly also said a trigger word that Meg overheard, and she began humming a tune directly from out of her long forgotten past. Unfortunately, when they landed Dred was hauled away since he was suffering from malnutrition. Upon meeting up with the Phalaxian commander, Colonel Regina Severine, the Cell learned that there had been several armed incidents from the locals in the area, each of which was particularly vicious. Deciding to investigate further, the Cell met their liason, Trooper 173...who turned out to be Jericus' ex-girlfriend from Phalanx, Rhia Skiriam. Turned out, the woman had been mind cleansed, and now served as a grenadier in the 168th. Having recovered from his distress, Jericus finally got his head straight, and the Acolytes began gathering information on the nearby derelict Arsenal Gear submersible. Apparently, in the harbor section of the abandoned part of the hive, hundreds of armed insurgents with no clear goal or name had bunkered down in and around the ice-breaker submersible, as well as in the ruined part of town. Prompting further investigation, the Cell requested the Phalaxians stage a diversionary assault to allow enough of a distraction for both them and a team of grenadiers to infiltrate onto the sub and see exactly what they were hiding. The attack went well, allowing the Cell to move along relatively undetected. Neutralizing several small, scattered teams throughout the area, Meghara recieved several injuries, while Jericus discovered a strange symbol on a piece of aged leather. The meeting with the grenadiers could have also gone better. A sniper fired a warning shot at Meghara's head, which missed only because Zane pulled her aside in time. Things began to get heated between one angry psyker and another stormtrooper (equally mad) when the sergeant arrived and broke up the whole thing. Explaining the situation, Sergeant O'Reilly led the team through a maintenance hatch into the sub, the team splitting up midway through. As they moved through the sub, however, O'Reilly discovered that vox was down, and Jericus' augmetic ear kept acting up. With no option to go back, the team pressed forward until they discovered a cargo bay obviously set aside as a barracks. The revealing and neutralizing of a strange device restored vox, but there was no response from the other team. Jericus found a strange symbol, exactly like the one on the leather, painted over another one on the wall, indicating some kind of long-running conflict happening underneath the civil war. Pushing on, they found several closets, cabins and hallways with pulverized corpses in them, smashed beyond all recognition. The group neutralized another large group of insurgents before finding the ice-crushing room, filled with corpses. Two live PDF troopers with red bands had been looking over the process, while several thugs had been feeding the bodies of more PDF (blue this time) and gangsters to the ice-crusher. Finding a cogitator, Zane captured several picts onto the data-slate and confirmed the KIA status of the other team, as well as spotting another group of red PDFs patrolling up at the bow. Setting the plasma coil engines to continue charging, the group abandoned the sub and made a dash through the city, reaching safety mere moments before the entire craft went up in a cataclysmic explosion, melting nearly all of the harbor section and two kilometres of city around it. Extracted back to base, the Cell took time to train with their weapons, stock up on supplies and, in Zane's case, get friendly with the locals (a female enginseer, specifically). Once it was time to go, tensions arose between Meghara and Zane, and Jericus explained that the same thing had happened to him before as well, and advised for Zane to go a little easy on the flirting. His advice fell on deaf ears. Outpost Bravo, set up more than a hundred kilometres away in the ruined section of the city, had come under attack from unknown hostiles since the 168th had first deployed. Captain Immrich commanded the outpost and the teams in the surrounding area, and the men were beginning to feel the tolls of such attacks. However, for the past week none had come, so Severine had told the Cell now was a prime opportunity to slip behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, when they arrived the outpost soon came under attack. A large group of enemies began pushing hard to hit the outpost, and though the Phalaxians were more than a match for them the enemy still had the weight of numbers. The Cell helped to push back the assault, killing off many enemies and even finding a PDF artillery spotter with a blue armband. Meghara captured him before he could finish radioing the coordinates of the outpost's defensive line to the Whirlwind artillery tank he was talking to. Abruptly, however, the enemy ceased their assault and began pulling back, just before the missiles started firing, raining down ordnance on the outpost and destroying the motor pool, communications array, a tent full of wounded and killing fully half of the Phalaxians. Organising to start forming a desperate defense, Zane healed the wounded soldiers, and the Cell interrogated the traitor to find that the Whirlwind was neaby, only a kilometre away. While Captain Immrich, Jericus and Dred started making their defensive line, Zane and Meghara led a small team to capture the Whirlwind. Using the missile tank, Zane called out targets and managed to cripple the PDF attack force's armored capabilities. Chased by a cyber-mastiff, Zane literally fed it a krak grenade and lost his pursuers. The Whirlwind was brought back to Outpost Bravo just in time, as the PDF began their assault. Wave after wave of troopers crashed into the Phalaxian lines, getting cut down by volleys of lasfire, grenades and heavy weapons. However, after fighting off three waves, two flanking forces managed to breach not only the main compound but also found the Whirlwind and moved to destroy it. Both flankers were killed, but the damage was done. The fourth wave, consisting of three APCs, a light tank and almost a full platoon of soldiers began to move up in a far more strategic attack. The defense began to fall apart. Meghara was forced to deal with the flanking force alone, while the defensive lines found themselves taking casualties and their heavy weapons running dry. Falling back with the survivors of his line, Jericus managed to get out of an autocannon ball turret just in time, as the tank destroyed it with a single multi-laser burst. Falling back to the armory, the soldier and his Guardsmen brethren managed to neutralize the tank with a trio of missiles, and proceeded to pick off the infantry. Meghara finished off the PDF in the southeast, while another Guardsman pried open the APC and tossed in a frag grenade. Finding himself at odds and outnumbered, Zane did the same thing on the western flank, jamming both the engine and the grenade launcher on the APC before tossing his own frag grenade inside. Confusing the PDF behind it, he began hurrying towards the buildings, bullets whizzing past him. Another wave of tanks started coming from all sides, seeking to finally break through the weakened lines and finish the battle that had already cost them an entire regiment of men. However, when it seemed like all hope was lost, two Valkyries loaded with reinforcements came swooping down on the tanks, firing their missiles and multi-lasers and cutting a swath of destruction. Two squads of Phalaxian grenadiers roped down, helping to fight off the last wave of enemy infantry, downing several dozen at a time. Zane proceeded on his way back, but felt a dark presence at the back of his mind. With the wounded and most others of Immrich's platoon evacuated on Chimeras, the Cell fell back with the grenadiers to the Valkyries, preparing to pull out. However, a sniper managed to get a lucky shot, slamming into Rhia's ribs and sending her to the ground. However, in her last moments of conciousness, she showed that she had regained her previous memories. A deathbolt slammed into a building above them, spreading debris and ruin amongst the scattered infantry. With a horrifying cackle a sorcerer of the ruinous powers made himself known at the end of the street. Zane proceeded to have a mental duel with the vile spellcaster, his mental stamina tested to its limits before finally roasting him with a firebolt. Soon after the psyker collapsed from the strain. The Cell finally got out of the area, only to hear, upon setting down, that the 168th was pulling out. The fighting had begun, and upon setting up a link to Inquisitor Steele back in the main spire of Hive Svalbard, the Cell learned it was every single soul on the planet in battle. Men, women, children, the elderly. The infection of Chaos had already sunk in too deep to save anyone, so despite being argued against Steele called in an Exterminatus, giving it a leeway of two week's time. A Navy cordon had already been called in to blockade the planet, but they had to get out first. Zane requested a Valkyrie, and after healing Rhia's mental faculties and equipping her appropriately the Cell took off, reaching Hive Svalbard and finding it in the pandemonium of Chaos based war between followers of Tzeentch and Khorne. Clearing the area around the hotel, the Cell neutralized several tanks, a few dozen infantry and a Guncutter on patrol. However, the rescue turned bad, for when the Valkyrie set down a missile slammed into their engine, causing the craft to lurch out of control. It appeared as if the PDF had been making some illegal experiments with powered armor suits, and they had two deployed on the scene. Escaping the wreckage, the Cell split up, now having these armored juggernauts on their tail as they sprinted through the streets of Svalbard. Managing to keep ahead for quite a time, the Cell eventually found the weapons necessary to destroy these behemoths. It came at a price, however, as Zane was blasted through a manufactorum and slammed to the ground, losing his arm in the process. Hauling him back up, the Cell moved on before getting into a brief gunfight with another PDF patrol, during which Dred lost his nose. After waking up with a horrified scream, Zane psycically healed his wounds, also growing Dred's nose back as he managed to patch himself up enough to walk. Upon returning to the hotel, Inquisitor Steele gave them the bad news: the spaceport was the heaviest area of armed conflict. They'd need the 168th to help them punch through to freedom. After contacting the regiment, the Cell hunkered down, licking their wounds and fixing a nearby wrecked APC during the next two days. It was hard work, but the Phalaxians would arrive in a few days, and they needed to neutralize the hive's defenses to save every Guardsman they could. During such time, not only did Jericus and Rhia make up as a couple, but Zane and Meghara coupled as well (a fact that Steele took to noticing very carefully). In the morning, Steele divided up the targets. She and the stormtroopers, including Rhia, would hit the main gate with the APC to open up an entry point for the Guardsmen, while Zane and Meg would infiltrate and neutralize an enemy artillery battery. Jericus and Dred would take down a Guncutter refuelling station and hopefully a few of the crafts themselves. Slipping inside the artillery bunker undetected, Zane and Meg made their way to one of the security rooms, acquiring disguises on the way to the ammo lockers. Kicking their way in, they butchered the security men inside before swiftly moving on, searching the bunker floor by floor until they reached the shell room. Planting the charges, they made their way out quickly before the entire bunker fell in on itself, silencing the guns forever. Jerichus and Dred slammed into the landing pad full force, taking the place by storm until a shotgun shell got the better of Dred, heavily wounding him. Forced to run and gun, Jerichus planted charges before he and Dred escaped in the other guncutter shuttle. Meanwhile, Zane and Meg tracked down, at Steele's insistance, an enemy general making his way into the city. Using a destroyed checkpoint as a disguise, Zane stopped the convoy while Meg got in position above the general. Between the two of them, they butchered all the PDF traitors and the general's plasma-toting bodyguards, taking down another cog of the PDF machine. Meeting up together in the captured guncutter, the Acolytes moved back to meet Steele at the rendevous point, being informed of a shield pylon that had just been activated in the underhive. The other team she'd sent had fallen out of contact, and she dispatched one of her team, a man named Asmodyus Novus to accompany the Cell. Taking the guncutter, the team flew into the district before being shot down by a stray missile. Jerichus recovered from the concussive force that collapsed one of his lungs thanks to Zane's psychic powers. The team battled their way through the districts, avoiding PDF firefights and convoys on their way to the elevator. However, once they dispatched the PDF team guarding the elevator, another battle began raging its way towards them. Taking the elevator down, the group descended to the pylon level, finding the area abandoned. The first control room, however, was strewn in the bodies of the Inquisition team, slashed to ribbons. Deactivating the first panel, they ventured to the second one, only to find it encased in ice. Deactivating the power box here, they moved to the third before they ran into a pack of Khorne Flesh Hounds. Defeating them, the team moved on to the last powerbox, only to get ambushed by Chaos Furies the second they powered it down, smashing out of the vents. Blasting the Furies down, the group swiftly retreated, only to find a daemonic battle raging in the pylon chamber. A Herald of Khorne, riding a Juggernaut, smashed through a wall, fixing directly onto the Acolytes before giving chase. Blasting their way out, the Cell locked down a set of blast doors behind them before making their way back to the elevator. Despite technical difficulties, the elevator made it to the top. However, the Cell was not to escape so quickly or scott free. Before they got too far, the street split before them, and the Herald emerged astride the Juggernaut. With a quick and desperate fight, the creature was destroyed and the Cell progressed on. Finally making their way back to the hotel, exhausted and bedraggled, they faced a difficult decision: proceed to the single contact at the prearranged rendevous point, or continue on towards the new battleground. The Phalaxians had already made their way into the city, and were pressing towards the spaceport hard, and the PDF were throwing everything they had against them. Finally, they made their way north, meeting up with a battlebeaten Rhia. Through her, they learned the entire team was dead and Steele was badly wounded. They made their way towards the highway, hotwiring a hover speeder and jetting down into the battlefield before getting shot down. Blasting themselves a corridor, they finally made it through the PDF's front lines before dashing across the artillery bombardment zone and to the 168th. It was here that they were finally evaced thanks to fire support from Zane's first mate, Gabriel Tosh. After their escape, the Acolytes witnessed the might of the Imperial Navy moving in to lock the planet down. COMPLETED Intermission The Cell went their seperate ways for nine months after Midgard. The Inquisition mostly declared that they needed a break, but everyone knew it was because they were under observation for signs of corruption. However, this didn't stop them all from doing their own things. Dred returned to Merov and Luggnum, overseeing his businesses and training with the man who had taught him nearly all of his fighting techniques. Jericus and Asmodyus went to Scintilla where, after a hard decision and a long discussion, Jericus left his daughter at the Progena Kyron, and didn't look back. Novus was not pleased, and spent the rest of his time with his wife. Jericus went in disguise in the Scintilla PDF's ranks, improving his skills hidden among the raw recruits. Zane got his ship back, and he and his first mate Tosh made a break for it before the young psyker recieved an invitation to join the Temple Calix, a secret order of militant psykers who trained in strength of both mind and body. Telling Tosh to take his ship back to his father's blockade, Zane joined the temple gladly. Meghara returned to her Temple, where she refined her already deadly skills, having vanished off the map the instant the mission was over. Having some faint idea where she would be, the Inquisition knew to track her down at her temple and tell her of the new job they had arranged. Investigation of Merov Gran Magnus was Inquisitor Steele's newest Acolyte. A raw recruit, an adept barely out of the Munitorum magazines, Gran was orderly, succint and nearly completely sane, unlike the other members of the Cell. She had recieved a call that she was to hand them over, for now, to an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, who would be leading their next job. Gran met the team already on Scintilla, and the four took a trip on the destroyer Arrow of Faith that brought them to Merov. Here, they departed to board the Inquisition strike cruiser Purgatory, told that their assignment awaited them. However, they didn't get much further past meeting Dred and another mysterious recruit before the ship shuddered, under attack. The group sprinted down the hallway before being ambushed by a party of dark eldar, mysterious and enigmatic creatures at best, vicious and sadistic at worst. However, the Cell's veterancy in battle was more than enough to help cut the dark creatures down with blades and volleys of fire. A mysterious, psychic voice rang through everyone's heads, telling them to destroy the small device generating the dark webway gate. Without a second thought, but pushing the voice out of his head, Jericus drew his bolt pistol and shot the machine almost point blank, destroying it easily. The group split into three teams. While Dred and the stranger (codenamed "Grim") charged towards the port bow gunwhales gunnery station, Asmodyus and Gran were to sweep the corridors, and Meg was to accompany Jericus to the armory to secure the weapon stocks. The operation went well at first. While Asmodyus and Gran took out the roaming eldar well enough, Jericus and Meg ran into a group of advancing xenos, getting the jump on them and destroying the webway before the enemy even knew of their existence. They paid for it, however, when they turned and fired on Jericus with their Splinter Rifles, nearly killing the Guardsman before he returned fire with a grenade launcher and hellgun. Meg swept forward, and between the two, they butchered the rest and moved to get medical attention. Dred and Grim, however, were to run into the greatest resistance in the gunnery bay, as the crewmen had taken cover and were returning fire with shotguns and pistols. Between the two groups, the Imperials managed to kill at least twenty dark eldar. The group reconvened in the breifing room, where their new Inquisitor gave them their assignment: to land on Merov and look for xeno relics that had fallen into noble hands. It was doubtless that these dark intruders were also searching for them, and this attack merely served as a distraction. That night, after the briefing, Zane revealed himself to Meg first, and the two celebrated his return together. The next morning, the group met in the cantina, failing to realize Grim's identity behind his mask at first until Jericus noticed the particular up-beat way the stranger spoke in. The Cell took an Argus Lighter down to the surface, but unfortunately took fire from a dark dais. The shuttle crash-landed in a shallow lake, less than a few kilometres outside the city. However, when the group departed and headed through the woods, managing to recover after a brief period of being lost, they finally found they nearby city. A quick look, however, suddenly revealed a dark eldar army camped out literally on the city's gate, and the weapons batteries being manned by the aliens. A swift retreat into the woods, followed by a sprint out onto a field suddenly pushed the Cell into a hunting ground. A group of dark eldar unleashed two juvenile warp beasts on the Cell, thinking it would be enough to cause the humans' deaths. Sadly, they were mistaken, as the creatures were swiftly torn asunder. Angered, the dark eldar wytch called for reinforcements as they began advancing on the Acolytes, but suddenly another eldar task force, this one from the craftworld of Biel-Tan, surged forth, attacking the dark eldar. A drop pod from Tosh in a Thunderhawk (who had arrived with no previous warning to the rest of the group) held three combat bikes, and the Cell swiftly escaped the raging eldar fratricide. The group escaped into the forest until their bikes could no longer progress through the trees, but Jericus and Dred were abruptly set upon by a group of eldar mounted on jetbikes, lead by an Aspect Warrior. However, after a brief standoff, they were allowed by the eldar to leave without incident. The Cell travelled through the forest before abruptly coming to a halt, finding a datapad in the middle of nowhere that Dred activated to reveal a hidden escape passage that lead back into the city. After a brief hour of walking followed by transport on a conveyor belt, the Cell came back up in a safehouse, and met up with another Inquisitor and his bodyguard to meet their 'new allies' to fight the dark eldar's insidious takeover and root out the corruption that had obviously taken hold. However, the meeting could have gone better. The Cell was taken to a warehouse, where they met a Farseer and her own retinue. Meghara charged forward, blades drawn, as Jericus drew his bolt pistol. However, the two were swiftly disarmed and seperated from the aliens by Zane and the Inquisitor. The two groups exchanged conversation, agreeing to work together as long as it benifited them both and drove the dark eldar from the planet. The Cell was taken back to Dred's house, where they spent the night in luxury before being taken down to the armory. Here, after arming up, the group recieved new orders from both Inquisitors: Grim and Meg were to descend into the underhive to search for any trace of the technology cache, while Gran, Dred and Asmodyus were to begin thinning out the dark eldar support from the nobles. Jericus and Agamarr had one of the hardest jobs, and that was to gather the remnants of the PDF and arbitrators to fight the dark eldar and keep them busy. After busting down a few doors, Gran, Dred and Asmodyus managed to not only to clear the board of a pait of corrupt nobles, but also free up their PDF troopers and send them to Jericus. Meanwhile, Grim and Meg descended, locating the local crime boss. However, before he would work with them he told the pair to help his men fight off a dark eldar attack on his warehouse. This was a massive strike, consisting of more than two hundred enemies and at least eight webways. The fight was going badly for a time before the crime boss, Barack, suddenly slammed through a door in a Leman Russ Exterminator and assisted in clearing up the dark eldar. Up on the surface, Agamarr and Jericus first snuck into the Arbitrator precinct. Unfortunately, due to a communications error, Jericus wound up impateintly executing a sentry for disobeying orders. Regardless, after releasing the precint chief from any and all obligations to the nobility of the world, Jericus had support to make an attempt to lift the siege on the PDF command bunker. With his new strike team, they hit the enemy from behind, though the PDF suffered immense casualties. Dred, Asmodyus and Gran continued their hunt for information, coming to the manor of a paranoid noble. However, this trip paid off, for they recieved a recording that the Inquisitor, in a bold and daring move, had set them up to take the fall for him and act as bait on the planet. There was no technology, he said. Instead, he'd improve his own reputation by calling in a purge via Space Marine drop to cleanse Merov of xenos. This information was quickly transmitted to Meg and Zane, who used the Leman Russ to venture deep enough into the underhive to deliver the message to the dark eldar before retreating back to the surface with Barack's forces. However, they also learned that several well trained kill-troopers were in disguise among the PDF with orders to kill Jericus, who was relieving the soldiers of their obligations to the nobles and commanding them himself. With him eliminated, the soldiers would return to the nobles. Meanwhile, Jericus and Agamarr secured a PDF motor pool. However, half of their team was cut down in a surprise attack as dark eldar swarmed out of several web portals into the garage, firing new 'Cursed Wraithbone' splinter munitions, spikes that could dodge around cover to smack into the person hiding behind it. Although they nearly lost the entire team, Jericus and Agamarr managed to clean up. The group agreed to meet up at the PDF command bunker, under the war college, when the place came under attack. Jericus and over a hundred troopers fought against a massive dark eldar attack combined with deadly Talos machines, taking heavy casualties before the other two teams showed up with additional support. Just when they seemed victorious, however, a sniper took a shot at Jericus, and a lieutenant in the PDF forces stabbed him in the gut. The two were highly trained assassins, sent by the nobles to take out the man who was liberating their soldiers. However, the snipers were killed by the airborne team, and Jericus and Ripper finished the assassin. Finally, after reviewing the evidence while everyone was patched up, the group decided to end the cancer once and for all by assaulting the council spire and eliminating the corruption. They eventually agreed on an airborne plan of attack, dropping to an unused lander pad in the Aquila, killing the guards, and fighting their way inside. Once there, they had to fight past a token opposition, discovering a secret elevator and descending, only to find themselves in an ambush. A dark eldar began tossing terrorfex grenades to keep the Acolytes busy while a pack of Warp Beasts descended on them from all sides. The Cell, however, managed to fight them off without any undue difficulty, and pushed on, finally coming to the Council Meeting Hall. However, they found a sick and twisted vision before them; the dark eldar leader had transformed the nobles into inhuman, mutant abominations, which he sicced on the group. However, before they could do much damage, Asmodyous used his last bit of flamer fuel to torch fully half of the mutants, and Zane assassinated the eldar. Working with their backs to the walls, the Cell finally swam through the remaining mutants, thus finally ending the corruption. However, they were in for another surprise. As they rose to the surface, Inquisitor Boreas was waiting for them calmly, and exclaimed that he was being congratulated on controlling the Merov situation. Before he could say more, he was calmly vaporised by Inquisitor Czevak and his plasma cannon. In the intervening time after Merov, the Cell temporarily split their seperate ways. Collected by his father (known as 'Hellspawn' by Imperial Guardsmen) to inform Asmodyus that his chain to the Inquisition had been severed, the cleric returned to Apocrypha to not only witness the birth of his son, but also to earn a new step up in the Ecclesiarchy. Needing to return to an ordered life for a time, Gran served Inquisitor Steele as an attendant for some time, trying to get back to his old way of doing things. He failed, however, as Merov haunted his dreams and nightmares. Jericus was handed off swiftly. Due to a new program, the Inquisition was taking operatives not currently on active assignment and sending them to work as special forces personnel in the Imperial Guard. As soon as he reported back to Scintilla, the Phalaxian was dispatched to Endrith, where he served alongside a Catachan regiment putting down a local insurrection. While there, he picked up the tools of the trade, swiftly improving his physique and learning to live in the harshest conditions. Meg and Zane managed to slip away together, eager for some alone time. However, Zane hit on a few beautiful women, causing Meg to leave in disgust. Dred stayed on Merov to oversee reconstruction. In order to ensure that this sort of thing never happened again, he began mustering a collective controlled by the planet itself and not the nobles. The PDF was restructured as they hunted through the ruins of the capital hive for any surviving dark eldar, and the Gheiz household began collecting a private fleet to stand guard over the planet. However, their break was not to last. Four months after Merov, the call went out to recollect the Cell. They had a new mission. The Cleansing of Prometheus The next mission had the Acolytes meet once again, this time on board a cruiser over the planet Promethus V. A few things had changed, but not to any enormous extent. This next mysterious assignment suddenly had the Cell launching towards the surface of the ashworld, due to a planet wide communications blackout. Two engineering teams had already been sent to investigate, and then a detachment of Imperial Guardsmen. Nothing ever came back from these groups. Upon landing, the Cell was greeted by a small, hunched man who proceeded to inform them of the situation: while the entire planet was unable to send out calls, they could still communicate on the surface until a certain depth. The problem was, the cities of the planet stretched underground, and Prometheus was famous and valuable for its unique form of promethium, known as Phoenix Ash. The Cell were informed, however, of a rule that could detriment their progress: due to the unstable fumes that collect during the manufacture and brewing of Phoenix Ash, no explosive weapons were allowed in the lower levels. While this did indeed strip the Cell of much of their armory, they quickly were armed with new weapons that would not set off such a reaction, and proceeded down to investigate. The first level was almost completely undisturbed. Chemical laboratories where fuel was mixed, everything seemed to be in place until Gran hacked a security panel. There, he recovered a clue: a clip where the scientists were abducted by dark, flitting shadows in the shape of men. Then the panel failed. The Cell continued to the ninth floor, poking around some more and realizing one thing: there was absolutely no sign of a fight. A search of the habs on the residential level below proved that point, where the habs were left almost as if someone was about to come home. Even more interesting, the Cell was still able to keep contact with each other, even though they were well into the dark zone. Contact with the surface, however, had been cut off. The Cell had just gotten into the elevator and was about to descend to the bottom level to try and find whoever might have done this when the elevator stopped, and Jericus and Meg clambered out to discover a cable had been mostly cut. Suddenly, a shot rang out from above, and the two were engaged by a cultist. Jericus barked a warning while the assassin leapt up, slamming the man into the elevator car. However, the cables gave out, and everyone else just barely managed to get off, Jericus scooping up a dazed Meg as he hung off a small ledge. Swinging into the hallway, the group reconvened, now thoroughly convinced someone was still influencing things in the facility. Progressing further inside, the group found several rooms, most of which were unoccupied offices. However, Zane located a safe, one booby-trapped with a needle-thrower, embedding a spine in the wall. He and Jericus called Gran over to try and pick the vault, and Jericus pulled the needle out of the wall to show the adept, unwittingly poisoning himself with the halluceonogic drug coating its metal sides. Regardless, Gran failed to crack the vault. The group moved on, searching around a bit more, when Jericus suddenly dropped back. The drug had taken effect, and he'd barricaded himself in an office, believing the rest of the Cell out to get him. Asmodyus kicked the door down, and Jericus snapped off two bolt shells from his pistol. The flying door soaked up the rounds' kick, and detonated against the cleric's armor with only light bruising. Fortunately, the drugged Guardsman was put down with a swift blow from Meghara. Dred found the key-card to get through a security room that had so far fooled them, and when Jericus awoke once more, they moved on to find the secret that had been suppressing this facility, perhaps even the entire planet: a group of cultists chanting to a comms relay under a refractor barrier that deflected all projectiles. The Cell split into pairs, moving towards the power relays guarded by numerous cultists and a number of horrors, including the cult's magos, a mechanical assassin and a daemon-host. Overcoming these challenges, the Cell threw the levers, killing power to the shield. With power finally cut, the group secured the lower areas of the facility, discovering that the majority of the cultists were gone. As such, they headed back to the upper levels, discovering that the underground tunnels to the next spire were cut off, and their current one unable to reach the surface, the next with a failing life support system. To reach their next objective, the group was provided with a hover speeder, something fast to hopefully beat the warming of the planet and get to the spire to reactivate the life support system. Though they collided with several objects on the way, the speeder finally stopped next to a maintenance hatch, allowing the Acolytes access just before the heat of Prometheus' surface melted and vaporised the speeder. Afterwards, they were informed that the controls of this Spire were buried far below them, in the lower levels. To assist them in their efforts, a Tech-Priest as dispatched with them. Further on, the group reached a control room, and the tech-preist, Jericus and Gran stayed to initiate operations once more. The rest of the group pushed on into the reactor chambers, where they were suddenly confronted by an entire pack of Khorne Hounds, the daemonic creatures swarming the Acolytes. Suddenly, however, they were faced by a frenzied Khorne berzerker, from the World Eater traitor legion. Retreating, the group didn't realize that the reactors were shutting down, and a bolt of energy and missile streaked overhead, blasting the enemy Marine to pieces. *TBC* Intermission The Cell all went their seperate ways after that. Jericus has recieved a notice that for his heroism and valor under fire, he had earned candidacy in the Inquisition Stormtrooper ranks, to be processed through Camp Einherjar on Scintilla. He accepted without a second thought, getting a new augmetic bolted on to replace his lost arm. Meghera returned to her assassin's temple to train in new killing arts now that her primary method of fighting was destroyed. Gran followed Asmodyus back to his world for a bit, living with his family. But Dred was forced to return to Merov. His father had contracted a deadly illness, a side effect of the dark eldars' tortures, and there was no word whether he would survive or not. Two years passed. Liberation of Phalanx Interim Three years passed. With Grahn and Asmodyus headed back to Apocrypha and Jericus pronounced KIA on Phalanx, the Cell seemed ready to fall apart. At this time, however, a man named Sergeant Jayton 'Reaper' Mordechai might just hold them together...